Abstract Detail

Education and Outreach

Soltis, Douglas [1], Soltis, Pamela S. [2], Guralnick, Rob [3].

Teaching the Tree of Life I: Using animated movie and projection to teach the tree.

The fundamental importance of the Tree of Life to the scientific community is clear, both in terms of the importance of biodiversity, as well as having a firm knowledge of phylogenetic relationships among all species. The Tree of Life is essential to human well-being and survival. Given the fundamental importance of the Tree of Life, how best to teach the tree—that is how best to convey this importance to students and the public. Tree thinking (thinking about organismal relationships in the context of a family tree of relationships) is now commonly taught in schools, but getting this critical concept across must continue to be emphasized. We also need to convey to the public the central importance of the connectivity of all life as depicted in the Tree of Life—our future as a species depends on the public gaining this strong appreciation of connectivity. We highlight here novel innovative ways in which this can be achieved that employ story telling that include: 1) large scale interactive projections of the tree (One Tree, One Planet); 2) an animated movie (TreeTender) In the first talk we provide background and show segments of One Tree, One Planet; in the second talk we show our 15 minute animated movie, TreeTender.

1 - Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville,
2 - Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, 1659 Museum Road, Gainesville, Florida, 32611, United States
3 - University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, Dickinson Hall, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States

Keywords:
animation
biodiversity
projection art.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 17, Contributed Papers: Education and Outreach I
Location: 104/Mayo Civic Center
Date: Tuesday, July 24th, 2018
Time: 10:30 AM
Number: 17010
Abstract ID:776
Candidate for Awards:None